BATON ROUGE – It is ironic that ITEP – a liberal special interest group – launched an attack on the same day the Wall Street Journal editorialized in support of our proposal as well as other states who are seeking to eliminate income taxes. We have a fundamental philosophical disagreement with ITEP about how to help the poor and improve job opportunities for all Louisianans. Contrary to ITEP’s definition of fairness, we believe that the less money the government takes from people’s incomes, the better.

The best way to alleviate poverty is to create jobs, and the way to create jobs is by structuring a tax code that is fairer and simpler so that Louisiana can continue to foster an environment where businesses want to invest and create job opportunities for all of Louisiana’s citizens. Study after study has shown that companies move to places where taxes are lower, and job creation is the only sustainable way to combat systemic poverty.

There are progressive measures in the current tax code to help low-income groups, which we will retain in our final proposal. Sales tax exemptions are currently protected by the Louisiana Constitution and will remain so. The basic necessities of life – groceries, prescription medicine, and residential utilities – will remain sales-tax free. The proposal will also include some form of an Earned Income Tax Credit to offset any additional sales tax burden that might impact low-income Louisianans.

ITEP ignores an inconvenient truth: the states without a personal income tax – four of which are named in ITEP’s “Terrible Ten” list – helped create the most jobs in America over the last decade.